Rocky Mountain Environmental Health Association

Text of the San Francisco Precautionary Principle Policy:

Chapter 1 Precautionary Principle Policy Statement

Sec. 100. FINDINGS.

The Board of Supervisors finds and declares that:

A. Every San Franciscan has an
equal right to a healthy and safe environment. This requires that our air,
water, earth, and food be of a sufficiently high standard that individuals and
communities can live healthy, fulfilling, and dignified lives. The duty to
enhance, protect and preserve San Francisco's environment rests on the
shoulders of government, residents, citizen groups and businesses alike.

B. Historically, environmentally
harmful activities have only been stopped after they have manifested extreme
environmental degradation or exposed people to harm. In the case of DDT, lead,
and asbestos, for instance, regulatory action took place only after disaster
had struck. The delay between first knowledge of harm and appropriate action
to deal with it can be measured in human lives cut short.

C. San Francisco is a leader in
making choices based on the least environmentally harmful alternatives,
thereby challenging traditional assumptions about risk management. Numerous
City ordinances including: the Integrated Pest Management Ordinance, the
Resource Efficient Building Ordinance, the Healthy Air Ordinance, the Resource
Conservation Ordinance, and the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing
Ordinance apply a precautionary approach to specific City purchases and
activities. Internationally, this model is called the Precautionary Principle.

D. As the City consolidates
existing environmental laws into a single Environment Code, and builds a
framework for new legislation, the City sees the Precautionary Principle
approach as its policy framework to develop laws for a healthier and more just
San Francisco. By doing so, the City will create and maintain a healthy,
viable Bay Area environment for current and future generations, and will
become a model of sustainability.

E. Science and technology are
creating new solutions to prevent or mitigate environmental problems. However,
science is also creating new compounds and chemicals that are already finding
their way into mother's milk and causing other new problems. New legislation
may be required to address these situations, and the Precautionary Principle
is intended as a tool to help promote environmentally healthy alternatives
while weeding out the negative and often unintended consequences of new
technologies.

F. A central element of the
precautionary approach is the careful assessment of available alternatives
using the best available science. An alternatives assessment examines a broad
range of options in order to present the public with different effects of
different options considering short-term versus long-term effects or costs,
and evaluating and comparing the adverse or potentially adverse effects of
each option, noting options with fewer potential hazards. This process allows
fundamental questions to be asked: "Is this potentially hazardous
activity necessary?" "What less hazardous options are
available?" and "How little damage is possible?"

G. The alternatives assessment is
also a public process because, locally or internationally, the public bears
the ecological and health consequences of environmental decisions. A
government's course of action is necessarily enriched by broadly based public
participation when a full range of alternatives is considered based on input
from diverse individuals and groups. The public should be able to determine
the range of alternatives examined and suggest specific reasonable
alternatives, as well as their short- and long-term benefits and drawbacks.

H. This form of open
decision-making is in line with San Francisco's historic Sunshine Act, which
allows citizens to have full view of the legislative process. One of the goals
of the Precautionary Principle is to include citizens as equal partners in
decisions affecting their environment.

I. San Francisco looks forward to
the time when the City's power is generated from renewable sources, when all
our waste is recycled, when our vehicles produce only potable water as
emissions, when the Bay is free from toxins, and the oceans are free from
pollutants. The Precautionary Principle provides a means to help us attain
these goals as we evaluate future laws and policies in such areas as
transportation, construction, land use, planning, water, energy, health care,
recreation, purchasing, and public expenditure.

J. Transforming our society to
realize these goals and achieving a society living respectfully within the
bounds of nature will take a behavioral as well as technological revolution.
The Precautionary approach to decision-making will help San Francisco speed
this process of change by moving beyond finding cures for environmental ills
to preventing the ills before they can do harm.

Sec. 101. THE SAN FRANCISCO PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE.

The following shall constitute
the City and County of San Francisco's Precautionary Principle policy. All
officers, boards, commissions, and departments of the City and County shall
implement the Precautionary Principle in conducting the City and County's
affairs:

The Precautionary Principle
requires a thorough exploration and a careful analysis of a wide range of
alternatives. Using the best available science, the Precautionary Principle
requires the selection of the alternative that presents the least potential
threat to human health and the City's natural systems. Public participation
and an open and transparent decision making process are critical to finding
and selecting alternatives.

Where threats of serious or
irreversible damage to people or nature exist, lack of full scientific
certainty about cause and effect shall not be viewed as sufficient reason for
the City to postpone measures to prevent the degradation of the environment or
protect the health of its citizens. Any gaps in scientific data uncovered by
the examination of alternatives will provide a guidepost for future research,
but will not prevent protective action being taken by the City. As new
scientific data become available, the City will review its decisions and make
adjustments when warranted.

Where there are reasonable
grounds for concern, the precautionary approach to decision-making is meant to
help reduce harm by triggering a process to select the least potential threat.
The essential elements of the Precautionary Principle approach to
decision-making include:

1. Anticipatory Action: There is
a duty to take anticipatory action to prevent harm. government, business, and
community groups, as well as the general public, share this responsibility.

2. Right to Know: The community
has a right to know complete and accurate information on potential human
health and environmental impacts associated with the selection of products,
services, operations or plans. The burden to supply this information lies with
the proponent, not with the general public.

3. Alternatives Assessment: An
obligation exists to examine a full range of alternatives and select the
alternative with the least potential impact on human health and the
environment including the alternative of doing nothing.

4. Full Cost Accounting: When
evaluating potential alternatives, there is a duty to consider all the costs,
including raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, use, cleanup, eventual
disposal, and health costs even if such costs are not reflected in the initial
price. Short- and long-term time thresholds should be considered when making
decisions.

5. Participatory Decision
Process: Decisions applying the Precautionary Principle must be transparent,
participatory, and informed by the best available information.

Sec.102. THREE YEAR REVIEW.

No later than three years from
the effective date of this ordinance, and after a public hearing, the
Commission on the Environment shall submit a report to the Board of
Supervisors on the effectiveness of the Precautionary Principle policy.

Sec. 103. LIST OF ALL ENVIRONMENTAL ORDINANCES AND
RESOLUTIONS.

The Director of the Department of
the Environment shall produce and maintain a list of all City and County of
San Francisco ordinances and resolutions which affect or relate to the
environment and shall post this list on the Department of the Environment's
website.

Sec. 104. CITY UNDERTAKING LIMITED TO PROMOTION OF GENERAL
WELFARE.

The Board of Supervisors
encourages all City employees and officials to take the precautionary
principle into consideration and evaluate alternatives when taking actions
that could impact health and the environment, especially where those actions
could pose threats of serious harm or irreversible damage. This ordinance does
not impose specific duties upon any City employee or official to take specific
actions. In adopting and undertaking the enforcement of this ordinance, the
City and County of San Francisco is assuming an undertaking only to promote
the general welfare. It is not assuming, nor is it imposing on its officers
and employees, an obligation for breach of which it is liable in money damages
to any person who claims that such breach proximately caused injury nor may
this ordinance provide any basis for any other judicial relief including, but
not limited to a writ of mandamus or an injunction.